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The Kalido origins story: 3 stories with happy endings

At Kalido, we like stories, especially ones with happy endings. We really like stories with happy endings that happen to be true. And we particularly love these stories, because they’re also the reason we exist today.

1. Mums everywhere are going to be ok

Our co-founder, Sanjay Varma.

Our co-founder, Sanjay Varma. Imagine that your mum needs brain surgery as soon as possible. How do you go about finding a doctor you can trust? If you’re Kalido co-founder Sanjay Varma, you spend two agonising weeks contacting everyone you know, in the hopes that someone can recommend a good doctor – the best possible. After the whole ordeal (with Mrs Varma Sr happily making a full recovery), you create Kalido, so that no one else has to go through the same ordeal. Because by joining Kalido, anyone anywhere can find a trusted professional nearby – which means everyone’s mums are safer.

2. You really don’t have to spend money to make money

Those drums aren’t going to play themselves. Find a great tutor on Kalido.

Watching his son traipse around the neighbourhood, taping his ‘Private Drum Lessons’ posters on trees and signposts, Sanjay was struck by how inefficient this marketing technique was. There’s the hassle and expense of making and distributing the posters (and DIY efforts always look a little…homemade), and there’s no way to control who’ll respond to them. Word of mouth is time-consuming, and also has limited reach. ‘There should be a way for freelancers and independent professionals to market themselves, and find the clients they need, cheaply and efficiently, without hiring a recruiting agent or paying anyone commission,’ Sanjay thought to himself. And so, Kalido does just that.

3. Airport-time can be productive and enjoyable

Kalido can make any just-waiting-around time much less sucky.

Kalido can make any just-waiting-around time much less sucky. As Sanjay discovered on another one of his very many business trips, there are only so many newspapers you can read, so many podcasts you can listen to, and so many airport salads you can pick through. To manage the monotony, having good company would definitely help. And if sharing a latté in Terminal 2 spins into a promising new business opportunity – even better. But though airports are packed with people, you rarely use the time to network or socialize, because it’s just not somewhere you can comfortably strike up a conversation with anyone. So, what if you had an app which could match you with another traveler in the terminal, who just happens to be able to help you professionally? You could meet up with your new friend for a coffee, to discuss business, possibly practice a foreign language, or just to while away the hours until boarding. Kalido’s ability to make airport-time (and any other just-waiting-around time) productive and much less sucky is one of the things we love most about it.

So, those are some of the reasons that Kalido exists today. Download Kalido now and see how we can help you!